Dedicated to Education
by Faithful Magewhisper
Summary: Why did Minerva decide to be a teacher and how did she master the rocky way to become one? Basically I story close to my heart since I soon join ranks with Minerva.
1. New Colleagues

_**New Colleagues**_

I had known Filius Flitwick since the beginning of her own school years. He stood out among the other teachers at Hogwarts, just as I did. I was the only woman and the youngest among the staff; Filius was the only goblin-related.

Our shared singularity gave us each a special awareness for the other; both of us sensed it clearly, though neither mentioned it. We worked together very well, but both of us were wary – for good reason – of exposing ourselves, and the tenuous bond between us, much too nebulous to be called friendship, remained unacknowledged until near the end of my first year of teaching.

I had had a very stressful day today with a difficult seventh year class of Slytherins and Gryffindors, who were, as usual, at each other's throats throughout the class. Managing, just barely, to come out of the battle unscratched and successful, I retired to my room. But I was too charged up to really enjoy the quiet. So I changed clothes and went to the teachers' lounge to settle down and have a nice cup of tea and hopefully an enjoyable conversation.

The lounge wasn't empty; thank God. Filius Flitwick sat in one of the rump-sprung stuffed chairs, apparently absorbed in a copy of _Charms and More_. He looked up as I entered, and nodded briefly to me before returning to his reading.

The lounge was equipped with stacks of magazines – salvaged from the students – and a number of tattered paperbacks, abandoned by retired teachers or leaving students. Seeking distraction, I thumbed past a six-month-old copy of _Transfiguration Today_, a ragged copy of the _London Times_, and a neat stack of others. Finally picking up one of the books, I sat down with it.

It had no cover, but the title page read _The Impetuous Pirate_, "A sensuous, compelling love story, boundless as the Spanish main!" said the line beneath the title. The Spanish Main, eh? If escape was what I wanted, I couldn't do much better, I thought, and opened the book at random. It fell open automatically to page 42.

_Tipping up her nose scornfully, Tessa tossed her lush blond tresses back, oblivious to the fact that this caused her voluptuous breasts to become even more prominent in the low-necked dress. __Valdez's eyes widened at the sight, but he gave no outward sign of the effect such wanton beauty had on him._

_ "I thought that we might become better acquainted, Señorita," he suggested, in a low, sultry voice that made little shivers of anticipation run up and down Tessa's back._

_ "I have no interest in becoming acquainted with a ... a ... filthy, despicable, underhanded pirate!"_

_Valdez's teeth gleamed as he smiled at her, his hand stroking the handle of the dagger at his belt. He was impressed by her fearlessness; so bold, so impetuous ... and so beautiful._

I raised an eyebrow, but went on reading, fascinated.

_With an air of imperious possession, Valdez swooped an arm about Tessa's waist._

_ "You forget, Señorita," he murmured, the words tickling her sensitive earlobe, "you are a prize of war; and the Captain of a pirate ship has first choice of the booty!"_

_Tessa struggled in his powerful arms as he bore her to the berth and tossed her lightly onto the jewelled coverlet. She struggled to catch her breath, watching in terror as he undressed, laying aside his azure-blue velvet coat and then the fine ruffled white linen shirt. His chest was magnificent, a smooth expanse of gleaming bronze. Her fingertips ached to touch it, even though her heart pounded deafeningly in her ears as he reached for the waistband of his breeches._

_ "But no," he said, pausing. "It is unfair of me to neglect you, Señorita. Allow me." With an irresistible smile, he bent and gently cupped Tessa's breasts in the heated palms of his callused hands, enjoying the voluptuous weight of them through the thin silken fabric. With a small scream, Tessa shrank away from his probing touch, pressing back against the lace-embroidered feather pillow._

_ "You resist? What a pity to spoil such fine clothing, Señorita ..." He took a firm grasp on her jade-silk bodice and yanked, causing Tessa's fine white breasts to leap out of their concealment like a pair of plump partridges taking wing._

I made a sound, causing Professor Flitwick to look sharply over the top of his _Charms and More_. Hastily rearranging my face into a semblance of dignified absorption, I turned the page.

_Valdez's thick black curls swept her chest as he fastened his hot lips on Tessa's rose-pink nipples, making waves of anguished desire wash through her being. Weakened by the unaccustomed feelings that his ardour aroused in her, she was unable to move as his hand stealthily sought the hem of her gown and his blazing touch traced tendrils of sensation up the length of her slender thigh._

_ "Ah, mi amor," he groaned. "So lovely, so pure. You drive me mad with desire, mi amor. I have wanted you since I first saw you, so proud and cold on the deck of your father's ship. But not so cold now, my dear, eh?"_

_In fact, Valdez's kisses were wreaking havoc on Tessa's feelings. How, how could she be feeling such things for this man, who had cold-bloodedly sunk her father's ship, and murdered a hundred men with his own hands? She should be recoiling in horror, but instead she found herself gasping for breath, opening her mouth to receive his burning kisses, arching her body in involuntary abandon beneath the demanding pressure of his burgeoning manhood._

_ "Ah, mi amor," he gasped. "I cannot wait. But ... I do not wish to hurt you. Gently, mi amor, gently."_

_Tessa gasped as she felt the increasing pressure of his desire making its presence known between her legs._

_ "Oh!" she said. "Oh, please! You can't! I don't want you to!" _[Fine time to start making protests, I thought.]

_ "Don't worry, mi amor. Trust me."_

_Gradually, little be little, she relaxed under the touch of his hypnotic caresses, feeling the warmth in her stomach grow and spread. His lips brushed her breast, and his hot breath, murmuring reassurances, took away all her resistance. As she relaxed, her thighs opened without her willing it. Moving with infinite slowness, his engorged shaft teased aside the membrane of her innocence ..._

I let out a whoop and lost my grasp on the book, which slid off my lap and fell on the floor with a plop near Professor Flitwick's feet.

"Excuse me," I murmured, and bent to retrieve it, my face flaming. As I came up with _The Impetuous Pirate_ in my sweaty grasp, though, I saw that far from preserving his usual austere mien, Professor Flitwick was grinning widely.

"Let me guess," he said. "Valdez just teased aside the membrane of her innocence?"

"Yes," I said, breaking out into helpless giggling again. "How did you know?"

"Well, you weren't too far into it," he said, taking the book from my hand. His short, blunt fingers flicked the pages expertly. "It had to be that one, or maybe the one on page 73, where he laves her pink mounds with his hungry tongue."

"He _what_?"

"See for yourself." He thrust the book back into my hands, pointing to a spot halfway down the page.

Sure enough, _"... lifting aside the coverlet, he bent his coal-black head and laved her pink mounds with his hungry tongue. Tessa moaned and ..." _I gave an unhinged shriek.

"You've actually _read_ this?" I demanded, tearing my eyes away from Tessa and Valdez.

"Oh, yeah," he said, the grin widening. He had a gold tooth, far back on the right side. "Two or three times. It's not the best one, but it isn't bad."

"The best one? There are _more_ like this?"

"Sure. Let's see ..." He rose and began digging through the pile of tattered paperbacks on the table. "You want to look for the ones with no covers," he explained. "Those are the best."

"And here I thought you never read anything but _Charms and More _and the _Journal of the British Board of Education_," I said.

"What, I spend every day with rowdy teenagers, and I want to come up here and read 'New methods of teaching'? Hell, no – I'd rather sail the Spanish Main with Valdez." He eyed me with some interest, the grin still not quite gone. "I didn't think you read anything but _Transfiguration Today_, either, Scottish Wildcat," he said. "Appearances are deceiving, huh?"

"Must be," I said dryly. "What's this 'Scottish Wildcat'?"

"Oh, Dumbledore started that one," he said, leaning back with his fingers linked around one knee. "It's the voice, that accent that sounds like you just fought with the Jacobites, and as a General no less. That's what you've got, keeps the guys from being worse than they are. See, you sound like ... what's that muggle prime minister's name? ... ah, yes, Winston Churchill – If Winston Churchill was a lady, that is – and that scares them a little. You've got something else, though" – he viewed me thoughtfully, rocking back in his chair. "You have a way of talking like you expect to get your way, and if you don't, you'll know the reason why. Where'd you learn that?"

"At home," I said, smiling at the description.

His eyebrows went up. "Home?"

"Yes, I am the oldest of five. I saw my mother who could turn my rather ... rowdy brothers to jelly with a glance." And later, I had had a good deal of practice, where that air of inviolate authority – assumed though it might be – had stood me in good stead against people with a great deal more power than my brothers and now students of Hogwarts.

Filius nodded, absorbed in my explanation. "Yes, that makes sense. I used Walter Cronkite, myself."

"Walter _Cronkite_?" I goggled at him.

He grinned again, showing his gold tooth. "You can think of somebody better? Besides, I got to hear him for free on the radio every night. I used to entertain my mum – she wanted me to be a money-pinching banker." He smiled, half-ruefully. "If I talked like Walter Cronkite where we lived in those days, I wouldn't have _lived_ to go to college."

I was liking Filius Flitwick more by the second. "I hope your mother wasn't disappointed that you became a teacher instead of a banker."

"Tell you the truth, I'm not sure," he said, still grinning. "When I told her, she stared at me for a minute, then heaved a big sigh and said, 'Well, at least you can teach your nieces and nephews.'"

I laughed wryly. "I didn't get _that_ much enthusiasm when I told my husband I was going to be a teacher. He stared at me, and finally said if I was bored, why didn't I start on the business of getting our own and raising them."

Filius' eyes were a soft golden brown, like toffee drops. There was a glint of humour in them as they fixed on me.

"Yes, people still think it's fine to say to your face that you can't be doing what you're doing. 'Why are you here, little lady, and not home minding your man and child?'" he mimicked.

He grinned wryly, and patted my hand. "Don't worry, they'll give it up sooner or later. They mostly don't ask me to my face anymore why I'm not dressed in a furry costume and playing teddy bear with the children, like God made me to."

Then the other teachers had come into the lounge we had stopped talking, and Filius Flitwick had become one of my best friends; possibly the only person close to me who truly understood what I did, and why.


	2. Bitter Memories

_**Bitter Memories**_

Albus Dumbledore observed his deputy. She seemed as still, calm and serene as a Roman statue, but he also knew that this was just a facade. Knowing her, all kinds of thoughts were running through her head at top speed. _Are all my students safely in bed? Have I prepared tomorrow's classes? Are all supplies ordered for Hogwarts? Is there an Order meeting later tonight? When did Albus say we meet in his study for chess? _Albus chuckled to himself quietly, not wanting to disturb her moment of peace.

Filius had congratulated her on 39 years of teaching at Hogwarts. She had laughed his compliments and light bantering off and patted his head in comeback. Pomona had nearly fallen off her chair at that and then risen to congratulate Minerva herself. One after another, the rest of the staff had come forward to offer their admiration for her. Rolanda had even joked that she would never stick around that long and let the little brats make an ass of her. Even Dolores had made a move to step forward only to be met with a steely glare out of emerald green, bottomless orbs.

No one understood that today was not a happy day for her to remember. Not entirely happy at least.

The day of her followed her worst nightmare and a series of events leading to that nightmare.

_Albus eyed the stack of paper on his desk, and then blinked. For there in front of him was the name he had been thinking about all day long – McGonagall. _

_Not, of course, Murdina McGonagall. Minerva McGonagall. The headline read RETURNED FROM THE DEAD. Beneath was a picture of Minerva McGonagall, two years after school and in no uniform, but looking little different than she did before. She had been photographed sitting bolt upright in a hospital bed, hair tousled and flying like banners, delicate mouth set like a steel trap, and those extraordinary eyes glaring straight into the camera._

_With a sense of shock, Albus thumbed rapidly through the bundle of clippings, then returned to read them more carefully. Though the papers had made as much sensation as possible of the story, the facts were sparse._

_Minerva McGonagall Bagshot, wife of the noted historian Dr. Hamish W. Bagshot and son of Bathilda Bagshot, had disappeared during a holiday in the Scottish Highlands in Inverness, late in the spring of 1949. Her bag and cloak had been found, but the woman herself was gone without trace. All searches having proved futile, the Aurors and bereaved husband had at length concluded that Minerva McGonagall Bagshot must have been murdered, perhaps by a ex-follower of the late Gellert Grindelwald, and her body concealed somewhere in the rocky crags of the area._

_And in 1952, nearly three years later, Minerva McGonagall Bagshot had returned. She had been found, dishevelled and dressed in rags, wandering the spot at which she had disappeared. While appearing to be in good physical health, though slightly malnourished, Mrs. Bagshot was disoriented and incoherent._

_Raising his eyebrows slightly at the thought of Minerva McGonagall ever being incoherent, Albus thumbed through the rest of the clippings. They contained little more than the information that Mrs. Bagshot was being treated for exposure and shock at a local hospital. _

Albus had never been more rattled than by the thought of his former favourite student to have suffered lasting damage to her mentality. He had in fact rushed to the hospital himself and visited with her. Everything after that had been a blur.

_May 7 – __Visit with Hamish Bagshot this evening; this business about his wife. So distressing. Saw her yesterday – so frail, but those eyes staring – made me uneasy to sit with her, poor woman, though she talked sensibly._

_Enough to unhinge anyone, what she's been through – whatever it was. Terrible gossip about it all – so careless of Healer Bartholomew to let on that she's pregnant. So hard for Hamish – and for her, of course! My heart goes out to them both._

_May 10 – Hamish Bagshot to dinner. Doing my best to associate publicly both with him and his wife; I sit with her for an hour every day, in hopes of quelling some of the gossip. It's almost pitying now; word's gone round that she's demented. Knowing Minerva McGonagall, I'm not sure that she would not be more offended at being thought insane than at being considered immoral – must be one or the other though?_

_Tried repeatedly to talk to her about her experiences, but she says nothing of that. Talks all right about anything else, but always a sense that she's thinking of something else._

_May 12 – ... Can't get free of the notion that Minerva McGonagall is NOT deranged. Have heard the gossip, of course, but see nothing in her behaviour that seems unstable in the slightest._

_Do think she carries some terrible secret; one she's determined to keep. Spoke – cautiously – to Hamish of this; he's reticent, but I'm convinced she has said something to him. Have tried to make it clear I wish to help, in any way I can._

_May 14 – A visit from Hamish Bagshot. Very puzzling. He has asked my help, but I can't see why he asked what he has. Seems very important to him, though; he keeps himself under close rein, but wound tight as a watch. I fear the release – if it comes._

_Minerva well enough to travel – he means to take her back to London this week. Assured him I would communicate any results to him by letter at his University address; no hint to his wife._

_Have, of course, several items of interest on Gellert Grindelwald, though I can't imagine the significance of Gellert to this sorry business. He was after all already in prison because of my interference by the time of Minerva's disappearance. Of many of his followers, as I told Hamish – no inkling; a complete mystery._

_June 18 – Had a brief note from Hamish Bagshot, advising me that his wife's health is somewhat precarious; The pregnancy is dangerous and he asks my prayers._

And that was all. After that he hadn't heard of Minerva McGonagall for a very long time. Until she had one day in December stood at the gates of Hogwarts seeking employment and warmth and food.


	3. Bitter Memories II

_**Bitter Memories II**_

I had never understood why my colleagues made such a big deal about my teaching anniversary. I chanced a glance at Albus, standing by the door. He looked at me with sadness in his eyes and I knew that he too was thinking, like me, about the mysterious circumstances under which I had entered the castle.

I had never told anyone anything about the three years I had been away from England. Or the circumstances which led me to leave my husband for three years. I had never regretted this time ... I only regretted that I had never really tried to make Hamish understand ... that I had waited too long before I acted ... that it had taken my mother's death for me to ...

Tears sprang to my eyes and I blinked rapidly, a lump forming into my throat.

_Minerva's eyes snapped open, and for a moment she didn't know where she was. She sat up and reached for the matches on the small table by her bed. Her hands shook so badly that she couldn't light the lamp. Drawing her shawl around her shoulders, she got up and made her way to the window; after a struggle, she managed to get it open. She felt the cold wind on her face, closed her eyes and tried to calm herself._

_The dream had seemed so real._

_Taking deep breaths, and drawing comfort from the familiar sounds of the Highlands Minerva slowly brought herself back to reality. It was only a dream, she told herself. Just another dream ..._

_ "Are dreams our link to the spirit world?" Minerva's mother, Lady Emily, had written in her diary. "Do they carry messages, or warnings, or the answers to mysteries?"_

_I wish I knew, Mother, Minerva thought, as she stared at a vast forest that stretched away to the stars._

_Minerva had always thought the stars over Scotland were powerful and overwhelming, in London one could never really see the stars because of all the lights. _

_Minerva thought about the dream she had just had, and what it might possibly mean. That she should dream of the funeral was understandable, and perhaps even of the snake. But why had she felt the serpent was about to destroy her?_

_Just weeks before her death, Lady Emily had written in her diary: "I am plagued by dreams. One is a recurring nightmare, which I cannot explain and which terrifies me beyond endurance. The other dreams are strange visions of events that are not frightening but which seem unbelievably real to me. Could these in fact be lost memories? Am I somehow remembering my childhood at last? If only I knew, for I sense that an answer to my life lies in these cryptic dreams. An answer that must soon be found, or else I shall perish."_

_Minerva was startled out of her thoughts by sounds drifting in from the forest – a man's voice in the darkness, calling "All is well", accompanied by the sound of the other watchmen shifting in relaxation. And then Minerva remembered that she was in the McGonagall castle, in her mother's old suite._

_And Minerva felt her fears rise again._

_Back in Edinburgh, in the sanatorium where she had spent some weeks recovering from her mother's death, Minerva had dreamed of the same nightmares as her mother._

_Why? She wondered, as she shivered beneath her shawl. Could whatever haunted my mother and finally destroyed her be pursuing me out on this remote castle?_

_ "You must go back to Scotland, Minerva," Lady Emily had said, hours before she died. "You must make the journey you and I were going to make. Something is destroying us, and you must find its source and put an end to it, or else your life will end as mine is, prematurely, without anyone knowing why."_

_Minerva turned away from the window and looked around her mother's room. She looked at the papers lying on the small writing desk, papers that pertained to a legacy from long ago, from grandparents she had never known. She had been working at deciphering them, just as her mother had tried to understand their strange meaning. Her mother's diary, too, lay on the desk – Lady Emily's 'life-book', filled with her dreams and fears and her own futile attempts to understand the mystery of her life; the lost years of which she had no memory, the nightmares that seemed to foretell a frightening future. And there was a property deed, also part of Minerva's legacy from her grandparents. No one knew where the land was that was mentioned in the deed, or why Lady Emily's parents had purchased it or whether they had ever lived there._

_ "But I sense very strongly, Minerva," Emily had said toward the end of her life, "that the answer to everything lies in the place located on the deed. The property is somewhere in Scotland. Possibly it is the place of my birth. I do not know. Sometimes it has occurred to me to wonder whether the woman who haunts my dreams is there, still alive – although that is unlikely. You must find the land, Minerva. For me. To save yourself. And to save your future children."_

_To save myself, to save us all from _what_? Minerva thought._

_There was also a letter on the desk – an angry letter, saying, "Your talk of a curse is an affront to God." The letter was unsigned, but Minerva knew that it had been written by her Aunt Murdina, the woman who had raised Minerva's mother, Emily McGonagall, and who had refused to speak of the past, it terrified her so. And finally, there was the miniature of Lady Emily, a beautiful woman with sad eyes. How did these pieces fit together in the puzzle of this woman's life? And, Minerva wondered, into that of her own destiny as well?_

_ "I have no idea why your mother is dying," the healer had said to Minerva. "It is beyond my knowledge, my capabilities, to understand. She is not ill, yet she appears to be dying. I believe it is an affliction of the spirit rather than of the flesh, but I cannot explain why, or imagine what is the cause."_

_But Minerva had an idea. Several days before, a snake had suddenly slithered out of a bush when Minerva and her mother had been strolling around Hogsmead. It had Minerva standing frozen with fear, staring down on it and tensing for an attack. And then Lady Emily had stepped between her daughter and the dog, and just as the animal moved forward, Aberforth Dumbledore, a dear friend of her mother's had hexed it, and the snake had lain dead at their feet._

_ "Lady Emily seems to have all the symptoms of having been bitten by a very poisonous snake, Miss McGonagall," the healer had said, "but your mother wasn't bitten by the snake. I am mystified as to why she should have such symptoms."_

_Minerva returned her gaze to the window, and looked out again over the dark forest. She heard the guards. And she thought of how her mother had lain dying, helpless against the power that was killing her. And how, just hours after the death of his beloved friend and maybe more, Aberforth Dumbledore had put his wand to his head and only Albus' timely appearance had stopped another death._

_ "Strange forces are at work, my dearest Minerva," Lady Emily had said. "They have claimed me, after all these years. They will claim you. Please ... please, go to Scotland, find out what happened, stop this poison ... this – this curse, from harming you."_

_Minerva thought of what her mother had told her long ago. "Some wizard brought me to Aunt Murdina's cottage in England when I was four years old," Lady Emily had said. "I had been on the same train as he, coming, apparently, from Scotland. I had very little with me, I didn't speak. _I couldn't. _I can only believe that whatever it was that happened in Scotland, which I have never been able to recall, must have been somehow, quite literally, unspeakable. Murdina said it was months before I said anything to her at all. Minerva, it's important to know why, and what happened to our family in Scotland."_

_And then, just over a year ago, when Lady Emily had celebrated her forty-ninth birthday, she began to have the dreams, which she believed might actually have been memories of those lost years. She had described them in her diary: "I am a small child being held in a young woman's arms. Her skin is painted over with brown and blue and red and green, and we are surrounded by people. We are all waiting in silence for something. We are watching the opening of what looks like a cave. I start to speak, but I am told to remain silent. Somehow, I know that my mother is about to come. I want her to come. I am afraid for her. The dream ends there, but it is so vivid, I see things in such detail – I can feel the heat of the sun on my bare body. I cannot help but wonder if it is a recollection from my earlier years. But what does it mean?"_

_Minerva looked up at the stars. She was determined to get there and to find answers. As she had sat at her mother's bedside, watching the beautiful Lady Emily die of a mysterious illness, Minerva had thought; It is over now. Mother, your years of nightmares, of nameless fears, are gone. You are at peace._

_But when she was in the sanatorium, she had been visited by a dream. The same dream as just now. About the funeral and that snake ... even though the funeral hadn't happen then._

_She had awakened in terror to realize that whatever it was that had haunted Lady Emily all her life had not died with her. It now belonged to Minerva._


End file.
